Mobile Users Assignment Control Strategies For LTE Networks

Actual mobile operators are facing capacity issues of their networks and the growth of their energy consumption. This paper presents two strategies to control the assignment of mobile users in heterogeneous LTE networks. The objective of controlling is to improve the offered QoS while reducing the energy consumption of serving base stations. The control proposed in these strategies is local; both strategies aim at selecting the femtocell or macrocell that will serve a mobile user making a handover request. Moreover, as the femtocells can be switched off and the macrocells have to remain always on, both strategies offload mobile users to/from the selected femtocell/macrocell, that is, the mobile user may be moved from a femtocell to a macrocell or the other way around. The move is legitimate if the power consumption is lower and the QoS offered to the mobile user is not sacrified. Using real network data, simulations are done to evaluate these strategies in terms of power consumption and energy efficiency of the network, the percentage of served mobile users, allocated capacity, and deactivated femtocells.